Educational Science

Giraffes are tall creatures, but they're not as large as their extinct relatives, Sivatherium giganteum, a new study finds. In fact, S. giganteum may be the largest ruminant on record, researchers said. Ruminants are hoofed, cud-chewing creatures with four stomachs — a group that includes cows, buffalo and camels. This...

Animal Sex: How Giraffes Do It

With their treelike height, thin legs and awkward locomotion, giraffes are the epitome of the word gangly. But do their sexual behaviors involve smoother actions than one would assume from their appearance? Like people, giraffes mate year-round, though there's some indication that breeding times correspond with periods of high food...

Meet the family! (Image credit: Julian Fennessy/GCF)Giraffes are a more diverse group than once thought, with scientists recently identifying four distinct species. Since giraffes were first described in the 18th century, these long-necked mammals were thought of as one species, with nine subspecies emerging over subsequent decades. But researchers have...

Here's How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck (Infographic)

By 16 million years ago, the neck of the common ancestor of the okapi and the giraffe had elongated compared with its predecessors. More recently, the evolutionary tree split into two branches. The branch that results in the okapi has animals with necks that get shorter, while the giraffe branch...

1 Long Neck, 4 Species: New Giraffe Diversity Revealed

When it comes to giraffes, can you spot the difference? A new study reveals there's more to the animals' species diversity than once suspected. The study researchers collected and analyzed DNA from skin samples representing 190 giraffes from across Africa, the first such analysis to include data from all nine...

Okapi: Facts About the Forest Giraffe

Though sometimes called forest giraffes, this creature doesn’t look like a giraffe. It does have a long tongue, but it has the body of a horse and its legs have stripes, like a zebra. Males also have two small horns on the tops of their heads that are covered with...

Pregnant Giraffe Keeps Anxious Viewers Waiting

Millions of internet viewers are tensely following the video feed featuring a pregnant giraffe named April. And more than one month after the animal's distended belly took the internet by storm, the baby giraffe that is so greatly anticipated has yet to emerge. April appears unconcerned about still being pregnant....

How the Giraffe Got Its Iconic Neck

The age-old question of how the giraffe got its long neck may now be at least partly answered: Long necks were present in giraffe ancestors that lived at least 16 million years ago, a new study finds. In the study, researchers examined the cervical (neck) vertebrae from 71 animals, including...

'Star Wars' Creature: Giraffe Relative Named After Queen Amidala

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 5:30 p.m. E.T. The Star Wars franchise may need to update its menagerie of wonky, alienlike creatures to include a boneheaded, short-necked relative of the giraffe. The extinct relative of giraffes, Xenokeryx amidalae, takes its moniker from Queen Padmé Amidala, the wife of...

Giraffes Are Threatened with Extinction

Earth's tallest land mammal, the giraffe, is now threatened with extinction, according to an update to an international list of threatened species. Over the last 30 years, giraffe numbers have dropped by 40 percent across the globe, from around 151,702 to 163,452 individuals in 1985 to 97,562 giraffes in 2015,...